About FIATA

INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF FREIGHT FORWARDERS ASSOCIATIONS

Schaffhauserstrasse 104, CH-8152
Glattbrugg, Switzerland.
Phone: +41 (0) 43 211 65 00
Fax: +41 (0) 43 211 65 65
e-mail: info@fiata.com 
http://www.fiata.com

International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations, "FIATA” abbreviation of French name "Fédération Internationale des Associations de Transitaires et Assimilés", was established in Vienna/Austria on May 31, 1926 by 16 national and regional freight forwarding associations in several European countries. FIATA is the largest non-governmental organization in the world, which is represents an industry in 150 countries. Today the industry is represented by 40,000 forwarding and logistics firms of various ownership, employing around 10 million people.

At the beginning of 2007 FIATA included 96 associations from 84 countries as Association Members.

Today more than 5000 forwarding companies are members of FIATA on individual basis.

FIATA has consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations (inter alia ECE, ESCAP, ESCWA), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

FIATA  represents the freight forwarding industry by many other governmental organisations, governmental authorities, private international organisations in the field of transport such as the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the International Union of Railways (UIC), the International Road Transport Union (IRU), the World Customs Organization (WCO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), etc. On the whole FIATA has relations with 29 international organisations which regulate transport and freight forwarding activities.

FIATA's main objectives are:

-          to unite the freight forwarding industry worldwide

-          to represent, promote and protect the interests of the industry by participating as advisors or experts in meetings of international bodies dealing with transportation

-          to familiarise trade and industry and the public at large with the services rendered by freight forwarders through the dissemination of information, distribution of publications, etc.

-          to improve the quality of services rendered by freight forwarders by developing and promoting uniform forwarding documents, standard trading conditions, etc.

-          to assist with vocational training for freight forwarders, liability insurance problems, tools for electronic commerce including electronic data interchange (EDI) and barcode.

 

So since 1955 the world forwarding practice has eight forwarding FIATA documents:

-        FFI (FIATA Forwarding Instructions)

-        FIATA SIC (Shippers Intermodal Weight Certificate)

-        FIATA SDT (Shippers Declaration for the Transport of Dangerous Goods)

-        FWR (FIATA Warehouse Receipt)

-        FIATA FCR (Forwarders Certificate of Receipt)

-        FIATA FCT (Forwarders Certificate of Transport)

-        FBL (negotiable FIATA Multimodal Transport Bill of Lading)

-        FWB (non-negotiable FIATA Multimodal Transport Waybill)

 

FIATA is structured into

-        Multimodal Transport Institute (MTI)

-        Airfreight Institute (AFI)

-        Customs Affairs Institute (CAI)

-        Four Advisory Bodies:

-     Dangerous Goods

-     Security Matters

-     Legal Matters

-     Vocational Training

 

FIATA Association members are divided into 4 regions worldwide. These are:

-        Africa/Middle East

-        Americas

-        Asia/Pacific

Europe